HT room setup

[kingpin]

Hello gents.

New room in the new house.
Roughly 13'x23'x7'high

plan on building bass traps from floor to ceiling. they will come out from each side of the wall 2' and go across on an angle. The deepest part from the from the corner of the wall to the face of the bass trap measure roughly 18-20".

Here are a couple drawings really quickly.
A little more info.
speakers are 3/5' from the side walls and 4.5'from the back wall. The speaker face is 14" from the face of the t.v. and 10" from the side of the tv.
Plan on filling the bass trap cavities with bags of fibreglass insulation until full.
Laminate floor with an area rug.
Eventually some treatments for the walls.
Was thinking about bringing the bass traps that are on the back wall behind the couch 3'from each corner to make them deeper.

Any comments or recommendations appreciated.

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[---k---]

tv looks a little small.

[kingpin]

tv looks a little small.

thought you were going to say the speakers. :B
No projector for me if thats what you were implying though.
/thats my living room. :W

Mike

[dlneubec]

You will have to experiment to know, but perhaps moving the TV back (and maybe the subs also, though deep in the corner is probably not good for them) and/or the mains forward so there is less interaction with that large screen and the large sub baffles from your mains. I don't know what BSC you have setup in your mains, but I would be worried that your mains might sound as if they were right against the wall, or almost in wall, with those large surfaces right next to them.

I would also consider moving your seating further away from the back wall, so you have less back wall reflection to deal with and a steeper angle from the speakers to the listening position for an improved soundstage.

Actually, you might get better sound with the room oriented the other way, with the mains and TV arranged along the long wall. It would allow the speakers to be further apart, with a steeper angle to the listening position for a wider soundstage. The TV would be closer, making it appear larger. The subs could then have space to move anywhere along the short side walls that gives you the best output, which I think might make a dramatic difference. Just something I'd try out if I were doing it.

[ThomasW]

Mike,

Instead of triangles I recommend making the 1/4 cylinder (wedge of pie shaped) bass traps having a 24" radius.

I'm in the middle of finally building treatments for my family room system (I did the main A/V room 15yrs ago).

The flat traps I use cheap and easy. 2"X4" frame with a wood back (1/8th-1/4th inch Masonite, ply or whatever). Place 2 layer of R19 fiberglass. Compress the fiberglass and hold it in place with hardware cloth stapled to the wood frame. Cover the fiberglass with a layer of bonded polyester and cover the poly with a layer of cloth.

I have pics of these and will upload some of them later today.

For your system I'd put the 1/4th cylinder trap in the corners and line the rest of the wall with the flat traps.

[cjd]

I would consider moving the subs behind the TV (back to back, facing the side) and move the mains a little farther apart.

You may find one sub up front centered behind the TV, one behind you, also centered, will give you more balanced results.

Note, these are options, not givens: you'll have to experiment.

[ThomasW]

Here's a quick overview of how these traps are made...

http://home.comcast.net/~thomasw-2/CheapBassTraps.html

A stack of them awaiting finishing

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[kingpin]

Thanks guys for the info.

Thomas is there a huge difference between using a pie shape or a flat panel like i plan on using.

Reason I ask is because of the ease and the time it will take to construct.

I am under a real tight deadline. I have a week to tear down an existing basement including ceiling, walls, subfloor, and the rest of the crap and rebuild. Which includes insulate all the exterior walls, frame, wire, drywall walls and ceiling and install a new floor. I was hoping for time sake to just build a small frame out of 2x3'or 2x4 in the corners, fill with insulation and cover with somekind of cloth.

I week. What have I got myself into. 8O

Thanks for your patience.

Mike

[Dennis H]

I was hoping for time sake to just build a small frame out of 2x3'or 2x4 in the corners, fill with insulation and cover with somekind of cloth.

That'll work. When dealing with limited time and/or money, you just do the best you can with what you have to work with.

[kingpin]

So I guess its better to compress the fibreglass then lay it loosely in the space I'm making according to Thomas's pictures.

[ThomasW]

If you just buy rolls of fiberglass insulation and stack them in the corner you'll have an instant bass trap.

Later when time permits build traps.

You'll need something to keep the glass from bulging out if you chose to compress it, that's why I use the hardware cloth. Even if you don't compress it, I doubt that using just cloth will hold the glass in place.

The deeper the traps and the more the glass is compressed the lower the frequencies it absorbs..

[Hdale85]

What about using the pressed fiberglass panels? I've been thinking about making some bass traps with these.

[kingpin]

O.K. good.
So I guess the million dollar question is.
What frequencies will I be trying to absorb.
If thats so.
Then how about a 2 or 3 stage trap.
Heavily compressed on the bottom 1/2 and loose up top.
Or am I talking out of my ass and theres a lot more to it than this.

[ThomasW]

What about using the pressed fiberglass panels? I've been thinking about making some bass traps with these.

I'll be doing that next, I have a bundle of 2" panels sitting in the basement waiting....

The compressed stuff is significantly more expensive ($1.50/sq ft) compared to doubled R-19

O.K. good.
So I guess the million dollar question is.
What frequencies will I be trying to absorb.
If thats so.
Then how about a 2 or 3 stage trap.
Heavily compressed on the bottom 1/2 and loose up top.
Or am I talking out of my ass and theres a lot more to it than this.

Start here

http://home.comcast.net/~thomasw-2/SubwooferSetupandEQpage9.html

[kingpin]

well here is what I have been working on the past month and a half.

all walls, floors and ceilings were taken down. 2"styrofoam insulation was glued and screwed to the exterior walls. every knook and cranny was spray foamed including ducts and any gaps between vents and styrofoam. Pot lights installed. 18 of them

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framing of walls completed and wiring run kind of.

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2 layers of safe and sound on the ceiling 6"thick with air space between each layer and air space between top layer and floor.

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On the left is the wiring for 2 20 amp dedicated lines which are also going to be independant grounds. On the right. Optical cable and hdmi cable from computer and hi-def cable.

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Sound insulation in all the walls and all rough wiring done. 13 regular receptacles in the room on their own circuit. Lights on their own circuit which share the same leg as the the outlets. 2x20amp outlets on the same dedicated leg.

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Where the window is underneath to the left is the optical cable and hdmi cable for my computer, hi speed internet cable and telephone. One thing I did was since my computer was here and it seems that I always need more outlets around it I installed 2 outlets pers side of where the desk is going to be. Also will help to keep things organized.

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Here are the Birch ply cd &dvd shelves which are built into the walls. 4 units which will also have doors that I will make in front of them. I am thinking of lining the inside of the doors with foam to push against the cd's and dvd's to keep them from rattling when playing music and movies. The 2 shelves on the left have since moved 2 more joist spaces to the left cause I have decided to hang the right surround there instead of using stands.

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I have used 20 cans of spray foam and 26 bags of sound insulation so far. I have made sure there are no electrical lines near anywhere of the audio and video cables. This probably explains why I have used over 700 feet of 14/2 wire for a 13x23'room. 8O I tried to put the drywall on the ceiling today but it looks like the joists are way too uneven and I had to put strapping up. I figured I may as well buy the sound channel(resilient channel) which is supposed to help with dissipating sound through the channel. This job has had a lot of surprises so far like a crack in the wall underneath the window that was leaking water, to adding more pot lights to adding another door. Project Overkill all over again. :B
I hope to get all the drywall up this week and have a friend come over to do all the mudding and taping for me. Then will be painting, installing the bass traps in all the corners. and then the 12mm Maple laminate floor.

The room right now is extremely dead. I mean as dead as it can get. It's kind of eerie actually.

Mike

P.S. I just figured out I forgot to run the speaker wire for the surrounds. :cry:

[Hdale85]

Well luckily you don't have drywall up yet so that shouldn't be to big of a problem. It looks incredible. How much is that insulation your using? Looks like some kind of wool or something. Also the room may sound very dead without the drywall installed but I imagine you'll hear more reflections with it in there. You probably won't need as much treatment as a normal room persay but I would still imagine something would be in order.

[---k---]

Looks like a lot of effort went into that. Impressive :T

Are you drywalling over everything, or is there going to be some fabric over the walls?

[Bent]

Mike, I hadn't caught this thread yet...

very ambitious, looks real good so far
congrats on your effort.

about your first couple of pics - are those images of routers on top of the subwoofers? (for you, that would be appropriate, LOL).

[cjd]

There's one thing I'll say - when you take on a project, you don't bother with shortcuts.

Nice stuff!

C

[Hdale85]

I'd probably go about it the same way Better to do it right the first time I always say.

[kingpin]

Well luckily you don't have drywall up yet so that shouldn't be to big of a problem. It looks incredible. How much is that insulation your using? Looks like some kind of wool or something. Also the room may sound very dead without the drywall installed but I imagine you'll hear more reflections with it in there. You probably won't need as much treatment as a normal room persay but I would still imagine something would be in order.

$33 a bag for the insulation. Apparently it's lava rock.
I think it was $6 a meter 40 meters for the 12/3 wire
Every outlet box that has to do with the theater is a plastic box with all the metal strapping and screw removed.

[kingpin]

Looks like a lot of effort went into that. Impressive :T

Are you drywalling over everything, or is there going to be some fabric over the walls?

Everything is being drywalled with bass traps in each corner from floor to ceiling.

Now you have me thinking that maybe I should cut rectangular holes out of the drywall and just put some fabric over it where the sound treatments would go. hmmmmmm

[kingpin]

There's one thing I'll say - when you take on a project, you don't bother with shortcuts.

Nice stuff!

C

Yeah. It can be very annoying.

[---k---]

Yeah, depending on how dead you like your room. I would be tempted to stretch fabric over a LOT of it.

I've seen some people do fabric over more insulation than that, for a completely dead room. I think that is a bit much. I used to hang out at AVS dedicated home theater forum a bit. I seem to remember the general recommendation for the professional style home theater was 2-4" insulation across the who front wall, then 1-2 over 1/2 of the side walls.

I hate to make you start to reconsider your plans, but.... You got tons of absorption about to be covered up there. And hey, depending on your skills, stretching fabric maybe easier than hang rock.

[Hdale85]

I would say stretching fabric would definitely be easier. And just build some sort of decorative caps to put over the studs where you've stapled the fabric or what not. Not to mention skipping some steps as you won't have to paint or anything :B

[kingpin]

Actually, I think that stretching the fabric over parts of the wall would be going a bit to far for what I need.
Not to mention shrinking the room even more by adding more insulation is not what I want to do. 13 feet wide even seems a bit on the small side for me.
Overkill may be my middle name, but lately I have been thinking when is enough, enough.
I have a very talented friend who is going to be doing some paintings for me, and that is one of the things I am really looking forward to. That all depends on me getting her off her computer for a couple of days though. My biggest challenge yet.

Mike

[Hdale85]

You don't have 4" of insulation already?

[Habs4life]

Wow that looks like it will be great room.Im not sure if this is helpful or not ,but hear is an easy way to do the super chunks wedge style corner traps.see part 2.http://www.radford.edu/~shelm/acoustics/bass-traps.html

[kingpin]

You don't have 4" of insulation already?

There is 2 layers in the ceiling (6") and 6" in some parts of the walls.

[joecarrow]

I just wanted to mention, since somebody asked if the drywall was going up or not, that drywall does play an important role in fire safety. When I was living in the fraternity house, we got penalized by the city on one occasion after an inspection because a hole in drywall wasn't patched. The 2x4s burn, and if they're structural then the house doesn't stay up as long.

Enough of my worrying- the project looks great

Can't wait until the day comes when I can do something even approaching this!

[kingpin]

Picture whoring. lol

Well, all the drywall is up.

Since I am doing this by myself I had to go rent a drywall lift to put the slabs on the ceiling. That didn't turn so well as the old ceiling joists were sagging and drooping making the ceiling look like a bad frequency response.(give me this one would y'all). :B

So off i went to get some strapping to now strap and level the ceiling. But wouldn't you know it. I had a choice. Wood strapping for $2 a piece or resilient channel(aluminum tracks that help diffuse sound) for $4.50 a piece. Overkill got me again so I went with the resilient channel. What's another $200 bucks.

So after spending a good hour or so figuring out how to get the channel level by the end of the day Saturday I was back to square one of putting the drywall on the ceiling. Sunday and Monday was spent finishing that while the rest of last week was spent putting the drywall on the walls. Thank god that went pretty smoothly.

Now I am waiting for a friend the next week or so to tape and mud the drywall as I can do it, but I know I wont get the results I want.
Oh and I also ran wiring for the rear surrounds on the side walls besides the couch. I have decided to put the surrounds on wall mounts. I screwed a 2x6 in between the studs which is where the wall mounts will be secured. I also caulked between the drywall on the ceiling and the walls to help with keeping the sound in this room. I also caulked around all the outlet boxes again to help with keeping the sound in the room and not to escape.

Now I am trying to find some multi-adjustable wall mounts that will support at least 25-30lbs. The Polk audios that I am using have some weight to them.

View from the tv toward the back of the room where the couch and computer desk will be.

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This would be the view from the back of the room to toward the tv and stereo.

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The 2 sets of shelves. The wire hanging there is for one of the rear surrounds. It may look high but the actual speaker will be mounted 1foot lower.

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Close up of the birch veneer dvd/cd shelves which will have doors in front.

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Mike

[technimac]

Thinkin' ahead pays off.....

[QUOTE=kingpin....I also ran wiring for the rear surrounds on the side walls beside the couch. I have decided to put the surrounds on wall mounts. I screwed a 2x6 in between the studs which is where the wall mounts will be secured...[/QUOTE]

Mike, you're sure thinking ahead here. :T
I don't know how many times I've kicked myself for not doing stuff like that before the drywall is installed. :M
You won't regret doing this now, even if you don't immediately install the surrounds...all the infrastructure is there and the job will be infinitely easier when you do install them. :P

It sure looks like this will be a first class HT room when it's finished. You should be proud of the work and thought you've put into this project.
Cheers, Bruce

[kingpin]

Here is the latest from the past few weeks to today.

Floor-12mm maple laminate is installed.
Walls are painted in a color which I would descrbe as golden wheat.
Front wall where the tv goes is black.
Bass traps are in but no cover yet. 4add 4 more bags of safe and sound insulation to the bill. lol
Electrical all done including wall plates. Except for the isolated grounds.
tomorrow the crown and hopefully the covers for the bass traps go up.

I also included a picture of the speaker mounts I am using. These things are heavy duty. The shot from the top is not so good. I was trying to show the splined sleeve in the middle that the adjustment screws lock on to.
The speakers weigh 35lbs each.



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[Gir]

I really love the floors! Excellent job so far. I'm curious to see what kind of trim you're using and how you'll stain/paint it.

[Mazeroth]

Solid job! I can't wait to see it all finished. :T

[kingpin]

I really love the floors! Excellent job so far. I'm curious to see what kind of trim you're using and how you'll stain/paint it.

Sorry for the lame answer. I was planning on putting crown up. Since the ceiling is very low, under 7' I didn't think it was a good idea. Not to mention that the drywall on the ceiling is floating so I don't have a nailing surface up there. I bought a very simple 1 1/8 wide moulding that I will be gluing on the wall which I hope will act as some kind of poor mans crown.
The door and window trim will all be a satin white. Theonly wood that will be exposed is the floor and the multimedia shelves when the doors are open.

Mike

[J-Dub]

Beautifully done Kingpin!

I was beginning to get concerned about all of the talk of extra absorption but it looks like you have gone the right direction. The gypsum and insulated walls will have a great deal of absorption on their own so will the rug. I think you will have minimal reflection issues except a small chance in the higher frequencies in which case a FEW absorbers on the side walls and possibly a diffusor on the back wall might help. We won't know much about that until testing is done though. Might be a non issue.

The bass traps look great! Thomas' idea of 1/4 cylindrical traps would have added a bit of that diffusion though.

In the second set of pics it looks like you furred the walls in a few inches. I can't tell though. If you did it will help again with absorption and with the refracted waves traveling outside of the room.

I think the crown choice is a good one also. Big pieces of crown will shrink the ceilings appearance in hight. Another good trick to making the ceiling look higher is to paint it as close to white as you can handle.

I'm so jealous!!!
You are building my dream
Can I live vicariously through you for a little while

In Texas we no not have basements and my home is only 1600 sq ft. 3 beds and the living room shape forces me to make some very big sacrifices in HT. Won't even mention music.

Excellent work my friend! keep it up! I'm sure you will be more than happy when its all done!!! :T

[kingpin]

All done

So it's all done. Just need a couch. lol
The only thing I'm worried about is the Yamaha receivers vent from the top, which in my case is about 1/4" from the top shelf. On the other hand, I am not using the Yammies internal amps except for the surrounds. So I hope I can get away with it.

Dark shot with only the rear pots behind the tv dimmed down

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Lights on. You can see the subs behind the front speakers. Subs are angled along the bass traps pointing to the side walls. 2 18" subs tuned to 13hz.

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The business end. Yamaha rx-v1600, oppo 980h on top of Yamaha 5disc dvd/cd, SA3250, Active x-over(not used) on top of Crown amp for mains, behringer amp for subs, tripp lite 1200 ups and power regulator.

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crossovers for speakers sitting on top for now until i get the acrylic boxes built.

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Wiring all strapped and tied down. Power and audio cables are all crossing at right angles. All audio is spdif anyways so there shouldn't be any issues.
Cables are courtesy of monoprice and blue jeans cable.

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Media doors open and closed. Lots of storage. here you can also see one of the surrounds. Polk Audio rti-a3

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Rear of the room. My computer for ht and audio and everyday use. Connected to Yamaha receiver with a 50' toslink in the ceiling from my turtle beach montego audio card. Also connected to the tv with 50' dvi-hdmi cable from my vid card nvidia 8600gt. This will be upgraded soon to an ATI 3850 or 3870. No problems to report with using 50' cables. Used my old audio rack to hold everything. Cut a slot in one of the shelves to fit computer tower.

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continued

From the rear you can see how big the polks are. They sound prety great also.

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All in all very happy with the sound. I have a guy coming friday to fine tune the sound and the display picture quality. I still need a couch and a nicer area rug. A bit more manly to fit the room. My friend will be making some large oil paintings to add some decor. I may get some ht style things printed up st work to go on the media doors.

In case anyone is wondering, there are 2 doors. The one by the front left speaker is locked and will not be used. There is another by the computer desk which is the point of entry.

The front speakers are 3' ahead of the tv and 30" away from the sidewalls slightly toed in. They are roughly 5' from the back wall.

Any questions? lol

Mike

[BobEllis]

Nice room.

As for the Yamaha cooling, I'd try to get it more room for airflow if at all possible. My DSP-A1 is used strictly as a pre/pro. Earlier in its life it was used as a receiver in a cabinet that allowed 2 inches above it. Granted it is about 10 years old, but as my son's cat discovered that it was a warm place to lay, I started losing characters on the display. I'm not sure if it is heat or fur causing the problem. Hope to open it this weekend.